I tried speech-to-text app for a week | Did it help my blogging routine?

Not so long ago I saw this amazing post by Kelly @ Another Book in the Wall, where she talked about her way of fitting blogging into the busy schedule and daily routine, and one of the tips she gave was to use the speech-to-text app. 

My first thought was: OMG! This is amazing! 

I’m definitely one of those people who prefer to speak their thoughts out loud. I tend to talk to myself when I’m driving, just as a way to form my thoughts for the upcoming blog posts or book reviews. However, once I arrive at my destination I usually don’t have time to sit down and type everything I just spoke aloud, and then I forget about it entirely. 

This is going to be a week-long experiment of a speech-to-text app to see if it will help my blogging and maybe reduce the amount of time I spend staring at the blank screen. I’m very excited to see how it goes!

Day 1 – Monday, September 9th

The idea came to me literally as I arrived to work and I had a little bit of time before 9 am to do some research on what app I’ll be using for this experiment. It wasn’t a difficult choice, as the first article that I found about speech-to-text apps had Gboard – Google Keyboard on the first place of their list. Since I have an Android phone this choice seemed obvious. 

I’ve started by using this app in my Google Keep notes. 

There are a couple of ARCs that I read in April and May that I still haven’t reviewed, mostly because I didn’t really like them and don’t have much to say about them. I’ve decided to write some shorter reviews and only post them on GoodReads. So this speech-to-text experiment is great to finally catch up on those pending reviews. 

—DAY 1 RECAP—

PROS: 

• I finally wrote one review for the book I read in May! 
• It was much easier to speak my thought out loud than trying to put them all cohesively in blank Google Doc.

CONS:

• The speech recognition is not the best! It’s a good thing I started to re-write my review as soon as I finished dictating it. Because there were tons of words that the app messed up and I had to try to remember what I meant to say. 
• I realized that I speak a lot of nonsense… 

Day 2 – Tuesday, September 10th

Today was a crazy day at work and I did a lot of cloth ironing in the evening, which didn’t leave much time for blogging, or using the speech-to-text app. Although, I did come up with the most random idea for a new blog post. Not sure if it will ever be posted. 

—DAY 2 RECAP—

PROS:

• I discovered how easy it was to chat away while ironing. (Also, I love ironing. Does anyone else?! I find it so relaxing!) 

CONS:

• The speech-to-text only seemed to work while my phone screen was lit up, and the microphone from my hands-free wasn’t as good at picking up words compared to the usual phone mic. So out of 2 hours of ironing, I only did 30 mins of talking. 

Day 3 – Wednesday, September 11th

I’ve been in this weird mood lately, I don’t want to read and I don’t feel like writing blog posts. I wouldn’t necessarily call it a slump just yet, as I do have a desire to work on something and plenty of ideas, but I don’t develop or finish them. 

This resulted in countless google docs in my “Work in Progress” folder. 

—DAY 3 RECAP—

I can affirm with 100% certainty that even having multiple tools in my disposal – i.e. the speech-to-text app that facilitates blogging so much, I still don’t reach out for it and don’t do much writing during the week. 

The 3rd Day is over and so far I’ve written 1 review (that will forever remain on GoodReads) and began one weird post about weird things I like (that probably won’t make it to my blog either). This week is going great!

Day 4 – Thursday, September 19th

Yes, it’s been a week since I tried the app. I don’t want to give up on this idea just yet and was kinda enjoying my little experiment, however life got in the way. That’s why Day 4 is not the Thursday 12th, but a week after. 

I haven’t been able to prepare posts for this week, as we went away for the weekend to visit Safari Park and just rest a bit. Rest during the weekend usually means that I get behind on my blogging and reading plans, and will have tons of posts and review to catch up on during the upcoming Saturday and Sunday. 

—DAY 4 RECAP—

I tried to finish some of the posts I started writing during the previous week, but they didn’t feel right. One of them got deleted for good, the other one I might continue during some other time. 

The pros and cons of the app are still the same. It would have been a better tool if there was a way to add punctuation to the sentences. Is there?? Maybe I just didn’t find it???

Day 5 – Saturday, September 21st

This is the first time since I’ve started the experiment that I actually have some free time to spend on writing blog posts. However, I prefer to just type them in, instead of the app. I will be trying to write a review for one of the ARCs I finished a long time ago later today. Let’s see how that goes! 

I managed to write 2 reviews using the speech-to-text app! 

—DAY 5 RECAP —

PROS:

• I speak 2000 words in 10-15 minutes! If only I could write 2000 words in the same amount of time…
• This is a great tool to write those reviews that have been pending for months.

CONS:

• My thoughts are still messy. And it requires a lot of time to go through the recorded text. 

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WHAT DID I THINK?

I had so much fun conducting this experiment! My overall thoughts are:

• This is a perfect way to write reviews, at least for me. Especially those reviews where I don’t have much to say about the book.
• It’s fun to have an excuse to talk to myself! 😀
• I won’t be using this app for other types of posts.

Have you tried speech-to-text apps before? Did it help you with blogging? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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